Protesters against funding cuts for public schools rally Saturday in the Capitol rotunda in Austin. Teachers and concerned parents are demonstrating as a bill to slash $4 billion from education inches toward passage in the special session.

AUSTIN — The House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines on Saturday to recommend a controversial plan to reduce public education spending by at least $4 billion, cuts which hundreds of Texans later protested during a Capitol rally.

The full House will take up the school funding bill later week in a special session that Gov. Rick Perry called Tuesday after Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, killed the plan to cut public education with a filibuster in the last hours of the regular session.

Fewer than 250 public school teachers and parents protested under the Capitol dome Saturday.

"I can't sit by idly and watch the Legislature cut education to the core like this," said Hilary Whitfield, an Austin parent whose son's elementary school was threatened with closure. "It's immoral, unconstitutional and I can't believe everyone isn't rioting in the streets."

Protesters promised a larger turnout for another rally planned on Monday.

The Fort Worth senator whose filibuster increased attention for the school cuts received a rock star's welcome when she addressed the crowd.

Davis complained that the budget gave billions in tax breaks to business and kept $6 billion in the state's rainy day fund while cutting future school spending.

"What we said was: We value holding onto rainy day money, we value keeping corporate loopholes in place, and we don't value funding public education for our children," she said.

No added funding

House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, said he understands the concern about school budget cuts.

"This is a work in progress. We continue to see what we can do to fund public schools," Pitts said after the protesters chanted noisily outside his committee room.

For the first time in modern history, the state is not adding funding for the additional 170,000 students expected to enter public schools over the next two years. In fact, the proposal cuts money for school districts by $4 billion over the next two years from what they would get under current law.

Questions of equity

SB 1 would cut school districts by roughly 6 percent in the first year. The second year cuts range between 2 percent and 8 percent.

Districts that currently benefit from higher funding under the "target revenue system" would see the higher cuts in the second year. The target revenue system is a legacy of school funding reforms passed five years ago that largely froze school revenues at 2005-06 levels - resulting in huge distortions.

Some school districts get less than $5,000 per student, while others receive $7,000 to $12,000 per child.

"The core question is: Do we believe in equity?" Aycock asked. "Next session, we have to answer that question of equity for children."

In addition to a $4 billion cut in basic public education funding, the new budget also will cut $1.3 billion in discretionary grants to school districts for programs such as full-day prekindergarten, drop-out prevention and teacher incentives.

Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, also gave his colleagues "fair warning" that some school districts will get socked with a larger cut than what their computer impact figures show. Districts with declining property values will lose on top of the basic cuts, said Hochberg, a school finance expert.